Flying Without a Broom
by peaches4pies
Summary: With Dobby's help in the sixth year, a thoughtful and suspicious Harry uncovers Dumbledore's plan to save the magical world by offering Harry up as a sacrifice. And with more time to think, a resolute Harry decides that, even though there may be no hope for his life, there are better ways to die than by becoming a torture toy for the amusement of Voldemort and Bellatrix.


"Seriously, sir? You believe it's 'the next Great Adventure'?"

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"Why? I gave that up nonsense in grade school. In the mundane world, hardly anyone who's both educated and honest believes in God, gods, or the afterlife."

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"I used to, you know. The Dursleys are sorta of religious. They sent me to catechism classes while I was in the primary grades. It was one of the things they thought would help get the ' _freakiness_ ' out of me. That didn't work, any better than when they tried to beat it out of me."

.

"What do you mean, you didn't know? You yourself told me you knew I'd be suffering ' _10 dark years_ ' - what in the world did you think that meant? That they were mean to me, once in awhile? You know sometimes, I'm not sure whether you are a total creep, or just an idiot."

.

"Really? Well, it doesn't feel like you've ever shown me any respect at all. You knew I didn't put my name in that damned cup but when everyone, including Ron, thought I was lying, you said and did nothing."

.

"More excuses? Whatever. Anyhow, I learned to pray in catechism class and I prayed for to not be ' _freaky_. The priest taught us to respect and obey parents and guardians, so I prayed for that, as well. He didn't teach us to pray for food, or to be loved, or to not be beaten, but I prayed for those things, too. I didn't get any of those things. Well, I guess I did obey the Dursleys. But I'm pretty sure that had more to do with the beatings, than the prayers."

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"You think religion should make me 'feel' better? Fuck that! More food would have made me feel better. You coming and explaining what the hell was going on with my 'freakiness' would have made me 'feel' better. Get your personal pit bull Snape to make you some magical joy juice if you want to feel better."

.

"As I was saying, what I learned from that priest was that nobody was listening. Not my teachers. Not that damn squib with all the cats. Not God. Not you. Certainly not the priest or the police . . ."

.

"Yes, it was. What the Dursleys did to me should normally have resulted in them being sentenced to prison. Wait - did you protect them?"

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You did, you bastard!"

.

"Why in the world would you think I wouldn't want that? Yeah, I'm leaning more toward the ' _you are a brilliant idiot_ ' explanation."

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"What? Back at you: the goblins told me you're my magical guardian. You show ME some respect!"

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"Anyhow, I think religions help comfort people whose lives aren't going too badly, or people who don't have to think too much. But my life went badly, and I had to think a lot. You don't have to be very smart to work out that something strange is going on, if you are raised muggle, and your teacher's hair turns blue every time he yells at you, or you can talk to snakes, or you suddenly and instantly find yourself on top of a building."

.

"You know I spent a lot of time in whatever library I could, to get away from the Dursleys. You didn't know? Well, I guess that's one more thing you were too busy to notice. My grades have never reflected what I knew. But I got punished for getting better grades then Dudley, so I only did that once. After Hogwarts, Snape punished me if I did well in Potions, and neither of my friends wanted me to do really well."

.

"Why wouldn't you believe that? Surely you know. Ron wants his mate to be as lazy as he is, and Hermione feels threatened if anyone does better she does; she could barely stand it that I was better in DADA; she's gone totally off the rails when I did better in Potions. If she knew it was mostly just me, and not that book, she'd lose it altogether! Besides, since I could never talk to anyone about what I learned or knew, I never have really learned how to talk about such things. And Hermione would totally freak out, if she knew how much I know and understand"

.

"Why tell you now? Because it doesn't matter anymore. You haven't given me any tools or skills to fight that snakey bastard, and even as dishonest as you are, I believe you are telling the truth when you say it's him or me. And, thanks to you, it's going to be him."

.

"Power of love? What kind of shit are you talking, now? I've never been loved by anyone, and I've never loved anyone. At this point, I have no idea what either of those would be like. Maybe I could have learned to love my godfather - why do magicals call it that? - Sirius; maybe he loved me in some sort of way. Who knows? Thanks to you and your dithering about and never teaching me anything, we barely had any time together, so I'll never know. The Veil is strictly one-way."

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"Ginny? Are you serious?"

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"No, I'm not punning. That little bitch has even less of a clue who I am than Ron: she's just a Boy-Who-Lived groupie. If I actually let her see the real me, she would run off screaming. So would her mother."

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"I have to save everyone? No, I don't HAVE to do anything. That may be YOUR plan, but why should I give a shit?"

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"It's my world? Bullshit. It's YOUR world! Thanks to you, I have no 'world'. In the muggle world, I have no family, only a primary school education, no recognized job skills, and no job prospects. And on top of that, I have a reputation as a criminal. And in the magical world, I'm alternately delusional, dangerous, or a cad for failing to save everyone. All of it, thanks to you. "

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"What? No, I am not exaggerating. You know what the Prophet and Snape have done in this world, and in the muggle world, the Dursley's convinced everyone I'm a 'youthful offender' and that I attend special school for yobs and ASBOs. "

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"Yeah, those are just words for underage criminals . . . like me."

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"Oh, right. The magical world just LOVES ' _delusional_ ' me. All that love is the reason the ministry has tried to imprison me, have me kissed, have me expelled, and more. That kind of love, I can do without."

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"You ARE either delusional, or the biggest liar in England. Second year, I was the evil "Heir of Slytherin" to most of the school - you knew I wasn't, but said nothing. Third year, I was nearly eaten by your pet werewolf and TWICE nearly killed by your Ministry's Dementors. And, when there was a chance of my getting my godfather back and having a bit of a normal life, your personal pit bull sabotaged those chances. Fourth year, I was forced into a contest you KNEW I didn't enter - you fucking legilimens, you KNEW! - but almost everyone in the school wore those damn buttons, because you said nothing and did nothing. And then, after I'd fought Voldemort and escaped bleeding, after being tortured, the fucking Minister denied it all and threw his money at me. Fifth year I was bloody-well tortured by the Minister's Deputy after being told _to keep my head down'_ by my wimpy Head of House. And then I lost my godfather, in large part because you didn't tell me what was going on. And now you want me to sacrifice myself to Voldemort, to save the magical world."

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"How do I know? Dobby, of course! He's been spying for me for a year. After I lost Sirius, when you still wouldn't explain everything, I had him find out everything he could, and listen in on your conversations with Snape and Moody."

.

"What?"

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"Amazing. You are the smartest wizard in England, and you really have no clue about what elves can do, do you? I should have guessed. More of that wizard arrogance, thinking that anything not like them is below them, and dumb.

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"As if that matters to you! Not that it's any concern of yours, but I've left Hermione a letter explaining about my horcrux, and also what I know about elves . . . which is apparently more than you. Dobby and Winky are bound to me, but afterwards they can be bound to her once she understands. And, we've already worked out a plan to protect her, and Luna and Neville, if he wants it."

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"What? If you want to protect the rest, YOU do something. Take Fawkes, and pop-in unannounced on all the fucking DEs one by one, and hit them with a piercing hex right through the noggin!"

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"Yeah, just what I expected. You'd rather whine about the Greater Good, and your reputation, and do nothing! Your choice, of course. But don't blame me just because you are a useless wimp."

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"Sure you could. Just tell Riddle the whole prophecy. Once I'm gone, and all his baddies are gone . . . YOU can take him out."

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"You really love doing nothing, don't you? So what if he can come back? Don't let him! Don't kill him, just petrify him. You know how to make a basilisk. Keep him petrified and locked up till you've got a basilisk, and then have the snake do him permanently. Once he's nicely and permanently petrified, you just need to keep him far away from any mandrake juice. If you go bury him in a 100' hole in Alaska, that should do it. I doubt the Eskimos have any mandrakes, even if they find him."

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"Excuses, excuses."

.

"Yeah? Well fuck that. You think he's just going to pop in, hit me with a quick AK, and then pop out?"

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"What? You think there's a chance I'm going to magically 'come back' after he kills me? What nonsense! That sounds like one of the ridiculous plot lines in those romantic novels Hermione doesn't think I know about."

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"What do I have to be scared about? You bastard! I know what his _Crucio_ feels like; do you?"

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"I grant, it's possible. Maybe he's scared of me and wants to get it over with. But you know as well as I do, I'm only likely to die after a few dozen Cruciatus curses, with a flaying or disemboweling curse tossed in for good measure. He might take an hour to kill me . . . or he might take a couple of days or even weeks. As I've said before, fuck that!"

.

"Why would I? Why should I even care? Nobody has ever cared about me. Not even Hermione knows the real me - she'd hate the fact that I'm as smart as she is. But the Dursley's taught me to hide that. And that damned 'Boy Who Lived' character all the rest believe in, isn't anything like me. Even if I actually was the " _Boy Who Lived_ ", they can never make up their minds whether they want to admire that guy, or put him in Azkaban! The hell with that. Actually, it would be hell. Fighting and getting my ass kicked hurts. Being bit by that blasted basilisk, the one YOU should have found and destroyed fifty years ago, hurt. Getting crucio-ed by your former pupil Riddle hurt like hell. Fuck that. Let me die and get it over with. If anyone else doesn't want to live in Snake-face's kingdom, they can come jump off the Astronomy tower with me. Wait. Scratch that. I'm not hanging around till they get here; they can jump by themselves."

.

"By the way, the ghosts know. That's why they are still here."

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"I know some of them spout that 'going on to the light' pish-posh, but they know better. I never told anyone, but Myrtle's been the only friend who's been willing to talk with me, no matter what. She's crazy, of course. Besides Dobby, she's the best friend I've got. I began visiting her after the Chamber episode. We talked about all sorts of things, and eventually, she told me what it was like for her."

.

"Then I guess you realize that the "soul" is nothing more than the mental consciousness of people. For mundanes - muggles - once the brain dies, it's all lights out. The ghosts know that; they watch! A few muggles or squibs have enough magic to persist a bit. But for magicals, somehow the quantum magical field can sustain individual memories and personalities after the body dies. The field seems to be created by the presence of magicals on earth, sort of like a bunch of electrons together create a electric field, or large mass creates a gravity field. I think you know a enough mundane science, to sort of understand what I just said. If not, ask Hermione. She'd love to explain it. I find it tiresome."

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"Anyhow. Myrtle told me, once we became close friends, that ghosts were just people too scared to 'end'. From what she told me, normally when magicals die, their consciousness is sustained for a bit by the field. They have a chance to stay or go one. If they stay, they become ghosts. They can't really DO anything; they just are. Sounds terrible to me. But if they go on, they . . . well . . . just end. The scuttle-butt among the ghosts is that those who go on, get on some sort of transportation - wagon, boat, train - and move off to their destiny. It's probably just because that's what they expect. Anyhow, the illusion starts off light, but gets darker as it fades. Apparently, a few of the ghosts did get on the train (or whatever) but panicked as it got darker, and jumped off so they could come back."

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"I told Hermione a little bit of this, but she didn't like it, so I quit. She did help me work out what Magic probably is."

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"Yes, muggle quantum science has proven that almost anything can happen, at any time, but mostly won't. Magic seems to be some sort of special field that attaches to some people and things, that can make the unlikely likely. It may involve some additional dimensions, too. But that's all."

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"It's funny, really. Hawking and others are desperate to find a "Theory of Everything" that can combine the strong, weak and electromagnetic forces with gravity. They don't even realize that they are missing another fundamental field - magic - because they can't see or use it. And, if they could, it would break their instruments!"

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"Anyhow, between Myrtle and Hermione, it's pretty clear that ghosts are just a sort of fluctuation of the magical field that allows enough data and processing to continue, so that consciousness can continue even without a brain. Horcruxes are just a special case, since they are a complete copy of the consciousness and memories in a brain at a particular time. Contrary to what you, and I suppose Riddle, think there is no limit to the number of copies he can make. It may be that each copy degrades the original a bit, but I doubt it. I think he's crazy and messed up just because of rituals he's done, and because of the decade he spent as a half-ghost. Plus, when he replaced the personality in a new magical body AND merged the horcrux personality with the ghost personality, it got jumbled up some, like a double printed photo in a muggle magazine."

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"Regardless, people are nothing more than some quantum wiggles in some quantum fields. Turn 'em off, and they'll never know. Nobody will know. And it won't matter at all, because nothing matters at all. But some things hurt more than others, till you get turned off. And I'm ready. I'm tired of hurting. I'm tired of being despised by people. And understanding that they are really nothing somehow doesn't make it any better."

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"What? Why the hell should I care if they are scared and want to live? What difference will it make? Once they choose to 'move on', even they won't care; death is just the ultimate 'vanishing charm'. Why should I?"

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"You'll have to stop me, you say? Hm-mh. You know, the Sorting Hat wanted to put me in Slytherin."

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"Yes, really. I argued against it, because I had met Malfoy. But apparently, I really belonged there. You should realize that. But even you didn't understand what was going on in my head. You must not have wanted to know. It couldn't have been that hard with your legilimency. But if you couldn't figure me out when I was eleven, what chance do you have now?."

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"Aw, enough of that. Take a look at your wand. No, a CLOSE look. Yeah. You see it now?"

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"Yeah, I took it. Well, Dobby helped. Yeah, I figured you wouldn't want to lose your tool and would try to stop me. But your real wand might overpower my runes. And even if you get your old wand out, I'm pretty sure you won't be able to do any magic here, till you cut those runes out."

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"How did I know? Long story that I'm not going to tell. But I know a lot more than anyone ever knew. One thing I did learn from the Dursley's? Never trust anyone, and never let them know what you know or can do. How do you think I survived?"

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"Yes, you asshole, they did try to starve me. But I've been opening locks and doing wandless notice-me-not's since I was six."

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"Bullshit. Just because I'm more powerful and know more than most, doesn't mean I'm in Riddle's class. He was just playing with me, before. He won't mess around next time. I only got up from the Cruciatus at Little Hangleton because he fucking LET ME UP."

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"True, but I'm pretty good at self-study. Runes were easy. But I'm done. You're just stalling. Your wand should survive the fall; I've got in it an unbreakable holster. But you'll have to fish through the mush-puddle I'm about to make at the bottom. Yeah. The wand's on me."

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"Oh, get over yourself. Enough's enough; I'm done. Let's see how well I can fly without a broom!"

* * *

 _Yeah, there are some plot-holes in this._

 _But I think it's a fair attempt to consider what a realistic Harry, living in JKR's world, would do when he found out that Dumbledore's "Master Plan" was for him to let Riddle 'off' him, at his leisure. The book has him do it with an AK. That's totally unrealistic. A psychopath who enjoys torturing his closest followers is not going to do that. After his past problems with Harry, he'd probably cut off his hands and feet, and blind him, and then have Bellatrix heal him up a bit, and store him at the manor to play with later._

 _And the whole "Harry is the seventh horcrux, but Voldemort is his OWN eighth bit of soul, BUT ALSO Harry's only horcrux" is nothing but JKR's 'Hail Mary' pass, after she wrote herself into a corner! JKR was a brilliant writer . . . but her plot planning sucked._


End file.
